Fly and Elephant parties in Politics of Dahomey

This could have been taken from an alt history Wikipedia but is real

http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=3237388&fileId=S0021853700013566

Analysis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Dahomean history reveals, not the existence of an absolute despotism, but the presence of a complex and institutionalized political process responsive to the needs and demands of Dahomeans from every part of the country. Each year at Xwetanù (Annual Customs), Dahomean officials met to discuss and decide administrative, military, economic, and diplomatic policies of the nation. In the mid-nineteenth century an obvious polarization developed as two groups, the Elephant Party and the Fly Party, sought to mould foreign policy. The Elephant Party, composed of the Crown, the wealthiest Creole traders, and the highest male military officials, advocated continuing the established practice of capturing and exporting slaves. Therefore, the Elephant Party wanted to destroy Abeokuta, an African rival and threat to slave raiding, and to resist England, a European obstacle to the trans-Atlantic shipment of slaves. After 1840, as slaving became more difficult and as the palm oil trade emerged as an alternative to the slave trade, the Fly Party rose to challenge the goals of the Elephant Party. Comprised of the Amazon army, shrine priests, middle-level administrators, Dahomean entrepreneurs, and trade officials (groups who were unwilling to pay the costs of a major war and who were eager to gain access to the profits of ‘legitimate’ international trade), the Fly Party counselled peaceful co-existence with Abeokuta and restored commercial relations with England. Eventually, the Fly Party was able to gain ascendancy over the Elephant Party. By 1870 the great Creole traders had suffered severe economic reverses, the Crown and the high military officers were divided over the question of Abeokuta, and members of the Fly Party had obtained positions of political and economic dominance within the country. Thus, the economic and military transformations which affected all of West Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century evoked political polarizations, coalitions, and realignments in the nation of Dahomey.

Charlie Lloyd says:

The paper, as I read it, is only secondarily making a specific claim about Dahomean political history. (Indeed, later writers have challenged specifics like the alignment of the shrine priests.) Mainly it’s trying to frame, build, and shore up the idea, among his peers, that there is such a thing as Dahomean political history. Even many scholars in that distant time of the American past were reluctant to see pre-Maafa West Africa as anything but an entropic mess of “tribes” with absolute rulers, populated by unconscious people without culture beyond instinct. So first Yoder says that politics exist, and second he makes contestable claims about certain political processes, but then third he gets clever. Pacifism and the political dynamics of war is a career-long interest of Yoder’s, and (in my reading) he finds a beautiful place to put a knife in all war- and resource-states by his description of a Xwetanù:

the paper says:

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The ceremonies of Xwetanù served as propaganda for the official government policy by reinforcing the belief that the welfare of the nation depended on trade, tribute, and warfare, by proving that the king and his ministers had been successful in carrying out this policy, and by demonstrating to the assembled officials that they had benefitted personally from this policy.[/FONT]​
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The spectacular parades displaying the king’s wealth were designed to dramatize the rewards of the nation’s economic and military policies. The objects displayed in these parades were articles of commerce – cloth, cowries, gold, and silver; gifts of tribute – wheeled coaches, firemen’s uniforms, plumed police helmets, and European furniture; and the spoils of war – plantation slaves, skulls and jawbones of dead opponents, prisoners of war, and models of towns captured by Dahomean armies. […][/FONT]​
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In songs and speeches, the delegates to Xwetanù were told that the articles of trade, the prizes of tribute, and the booty of war were necessary to insure, not only the economic well-being of the nation, but also to maintain the approval of the ancestors watching over the fortunes of Dahomey. […][/FONT]​
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The close relationship between foreign trade and the prosperity of Dahomey was dramatized in a ceremony involving a large model ship displayed at the Customs. In 1850 Forbes described the ritual centered on this ship.[/FONT]​
[FONT=&quot]Just within the gate, on wheels, was a large full-rigged brigantine, under all plain sails, about twenty feet long . . . Towards noon [on the day the king distributed his wealth] the brigantine on wheels was drawn up outside the mob, and a boat on wheels put off to discharge her cargo of rum, tobacco and cowries.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
This ship, a gift of the Creole traders at Whydah, reinforced the notion that the most cherished symbols of wealth could be procured only through the continued operation of the slave trade.[/FONT]​
Charlie says:

In this way, as I see it, Yoder corners the “Dahomey had no politics” reader: he presents a scene of such crude wealth-display that it hardly counts as politics, but he frames it in a way that put it right beside the wealth displays – the gilded globes, the military parades, the model oil rigs – of the European courts and contemporary governments.

From here

http://tinyletter.com/vruba/letters/6-65-whiplash (warning some of the content of this issue is unpleasant).
 
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